Morgoth's Ring (49 page)

This represents an extreme compression of the section on Naming in Laws and Customs, pp. 214 ff.

3. Lorien was still the form in Laws and Customs and in the texts FM 2 and FM 3; in the present text FM 4 my father typed Lorien, but then altered it back to Lorien.

4. and abode in the house of Vaire': these words first appear in the present text; see note 9.

5. On the application of the term 'Statute' here see p. 254.

6. See p. 252, note 4.

7. FM 2 as typed had here, expanding the passage in Laws and Customs, p. 237: 'But Mandos summoned Miriel, and made known to her the Doom ...' This was later emended to read:

'Vaire, with whom Miriel dwelt, made known to her the Doom...'

8. These words of Vaire's are derived from her intervention in the Debate of the Valar in Laws and Customs, p. 244.

9. The footnote at this point is derived from Laws and Customs (pp. 249 - 50), although Miriel's entry into the house of Vaire stands there at the end of a long account recording the coming of Finwe to the halls of Mandos, his renunciation of re-birth, and the re-entry of the fea of Miriel into her body that still lay in Lorien.

In FM 2 there is no mention of Miriel after the words 'she went then to the Halls of Waiting appointed to the Eldar and was left in peace.' In FM 3 the text at this point is very compressed, and reads (in place of FM 4 $$18 - 23, all of which is present in FM 2

apart from the present footnote):

... 'I came hither to escape from the body, and I will not return to it'; and after ten years had passed the doom of disunion was spoken. And Miriel has dwelt ever since in the house of Vaire, and it is her part to record there the histories of the Kin of Finwe and all the deeds of the Noldor.

It came to pass that after three more years Finwe took as second wife Indis the Fair...

These texts are thus altogether inconsistent on the subject of the ultimate fate of Miriel. In particular the references to the House of Vaire are confusing. It was told in AAm (p. 49, $3) that 'Vaire the Weaver dwells with Mandos', and the same is implied in QS

$6 (V.205, retained almost unchanged in the Valaquenta):

'Vaire the weaver is his wife, who weaves all things that have been in time in her storied webs, and the halls of Mandos... are clothed therewith.' In Laws and Customs (p. 236) the spirit of Miriel departed from her body in Lorien 'and passed in silence to the halls of Mandos', and Finwe said to Manwe 'my heart warns me that Miriel will not return again from the house of Vaire'; in the debate of the Valar before the proclamation of the 'Statute'

Vaire said that 'the fea of Miriel is with me' (p. 244). But afterwards Nienna asked of Mandos that Miriel should be

'removed from the Halls of Waiting, and taken into the service of Vaire' (p. 248); this was refused, and when Finwe was slain their fear encountered each other 'in Mandos'. Thereafter the fea of Miriel was 'released', and re-united with her body 'she went to the doors of the House of Vaire and prayed to be admitted; and this prayer was granted, although in that House none of the Living dwelt nor have others ever entered it in the body.' Thus within the same text 'the house of Vaire' is both equated with 'the halls of Mandos' and distinguished from them.

In FM 4 ($8) the spirit of Miriel 'passed in silence to the keeping of Mandos, and abode in the house of Vaire' (see note 4

above); and in $18 'Vaire with whom Miriel dwelt made known to her the doom.' After Miriel's refusal of return 'she went then to the Halls of Waiting appointed to the Eldar and was left in peace'

($21), but (according to the footnote to this paragraph) 'after a time she was permitted to return to the house of Vaire.' Thus in this final text it seems certain that Vaire in some sense dwelt apart.

Very curiously, my father subsequently bracketed the footnote and wrote against it 'Omit', commenting beside it: 'Alter this.

What happened when Finwe came to Mandos?' Yet he had already answered this question very fully in Laws and Customs, where indeed it was the very fact of the coming of Finwe to the halls of Mandos that led to the release of Miriel and her admission to the house of Vaire.

10. In FM 2 the footnote on the names of the children of Indis read thus:

Three daughters and two sons, in this order: Findis, Nolofinwe, Faniel, Arafinwe, and frime. The mother-name of Nolofinwe was Ingoldo, signifying that he came of both the kin of the Ingar and of the Noldor. The mother-name of Arafinwe was Ingalaure, for he had the golden hair of his mother's people, and that endured in his line afterwards.

This was derived from a passage in the A-text of Laws and Customs (p. 230 note 22) which was omitted in B; in that however the daughters were not mentioned. The name Irime (for later Finvain) goes back to the original text FM 1 (p. 207). In the note in FM 3 the names are as in FM 4, but those of the sons are spelt Fingolphin and Finarphin, and this comment is added:

'These names are given in the forms of the later tongue in Middle-earth (save Findis and Faniel who did not leave Valinor).'

In a very late essay (1968 or later; referred to in IV.174) my father said that the mother-name of Finrod Felagund was Ingoldo, but he gave to it a wholly different significance. The term Ingar ('people of Ingwe') occurring in Laws and Customs text A (p. 230 note 22) and here, has not been found before.

11. FM 2 ends differently after 'might have been prevented': Thus it is that the cases in which the Eldar can marry again or desire to do so are rare; and rarer still are those who do this even when it is lawful; for the sorrow and strife in the house of Finwe are graven in the memory of the Noldor Elves.

This derives from Laws and Customs, p. 239. In FM 3 the conclusion is as in FM 4, but after 'and great sorrow and evil might have been prevented it continues: But this judgement was but a guess. Certain it is that the children of Indis were great and glorious ...' The later ending derives in its thought from the prophecy of Mandos in Laws and Customs (p. 247) at the final proclamation of the 'Statute of Finwe and Miriel'.

A note on certain conceptions in the story of Finwe and Miriel The nature of Elvish 'immortality' and 'death' had been stated very long before in The Book of Lost Tales (1.76):

Thither [i.e. to Mandos] in after days fared the Elves of all the clans who were by illhap slain with weapons or did die of grief for those that were slain - and only so might the Eldar die, and then it was only for a while. There Mandos spake their doom, and there they waited in the darkness, dreaming of their past deeds, until such time as he appointed when they might again be born into their children, and go forth to laugh and sing again.

And in the original Music of the Ainur (1.59) it is said of the Elves that

'dying they are reborn in their children, so that their number minishes not, nor grows.'

In the Quenta (IV.100, deriving from the 'Sketch of the Mythology', IV.21) the idea of rebirth is qualified:

Immortal were the Elves, and their wisdom waxed and grew from age to age, and no sickness or pestilence brought them death. But they could be slain with weapons in those days, even by mortal Men, and some waned and wasted with sorrow till they faded from the earth. Slain or fading their spirits went back to the halls of Mandos to wait a thousand years, or the pleasure of Mandos according to their deserts, before they were recalled to free life in Valinor, or were reborn, it is said, into their own children.

In QS the corresponding passage ($85, V.246) was much enlarged: Immortal were the Elves, and their wisdom waxed from age to age, and no sickness nor pestilence brought death to them. Yet their bodies were of the stuff of earth and could be destroyed, and in those days they were more like to the bodies of Men, and to the earth, since they had not so long been inhabited by the fire of the spirit, which consumeth them from within in the courses of time.

Therefore they could perish in the tumults of the world, and stone and water had power over them, and they could be slain with weapons in those days, even by mortal Men. And outside Valinor they tasted bitter grief, and some wasted and waned with sorrow, until they faded from the earth. Such was the measure of their mortality foretold in the Doom of Mandos spoken in Eruman. But if they were slain or wasted with grief, they died not from the earth, and their spirits went back to the halls of Mandos, and there waited, days or years, even a thousand, according to the will of Mandos and their deserts. Thence they are recalled at length to freedom, either as spirits, taking form according to their own thought, as the lesser folk of the divine race; or else, it is said, they are at times re-born into their own children, and the ancient wisdom of their race does not perish or grow less.

At the end of the Ainulindale it is said (I cite the final text D, p. 37, but the passage goes back almost unchanged to the pre-Lord of the Rings version, V.163):

For the Eldar die not till the world dies, unless they are slain or waste in grief (and to both these seeming deaths they are subject); neither does age subdue their strength, unless one grow weary of ten thousand centuries; and dying they are gathered in the halls of Mandos in Valinor, whence often they return and are reborn among their children.

And in the Doom of the Noldor as it appears in AAm ($154, p. 117) it was declared:

For know now that though Eru appointed unto you to die not in Ea, and no sickness may assail you, yet slain may ye be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief; and your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos. There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you.

The meaning of this, I feel sure, is: It is contrary indeed to the 'right nature' of the Elves that they should die, but nonetheless death may come to them.

The testimony of all these passages (and others not cited), early and late, is that Elvish 'death' (or 'seeming death', in the words of the Ainulindale') was always a possible fate, deriving from their nature as incarnate beings. But there is a constant threat of ambiguity imposed by the words that must be used. The Elves cannot 'die' in the sense that Men 'die', since Men (by the Gift of Iluvatar) depart from the 'world'

never to return, whereas the Elves cannot depart from it so long as it lasts. In the legend of Beren and Luthien Mandos offered her a choice: and the doom that she chose was that the destiny decreed by her nature should be changed. 'So it was that alone of the Eldalie she has died indeed, and left the world long ago' (The Silmarillion p. 187). But the Elves can nonetheless suffer the severance of spirit from body, which is 'death'. Thus it may be said that the essential distinction between the (possible) death of Elves and the (inevitable) death of Men is a difference of destiny after death. See V.304; and cf. Laws and Customs, p. 218: 'From their beginnings the chief difference between Elves and Men lay in the fate and nature of their spirits. The fear of the Elves were destined to dwell in Arda for all the life of Arda, and the death of the flesh did not abrogate that destiny.'

In a draft for a letter written in October 1958 (see p. 300) my father discussed the meaning of the 'immortality' of the Elves (Letters no.

212):

In this mythical 'prehistory' immortality, strictly longevity co-extensive with the life of Arda, was part of the given nature of the Elves; beyond the End nothing was revealed. Mortality, that is a short life-span having no relation to the life of Arda, is spoken of as the given nature of Men...

In the Elvish legends there is record of a strange case of an Elf (Miriel mother of Feanor) that tried to die, which had disastrous results, leading to the 'Fall' of the High-elves. The Elves were not subject to disease, but they could be 'slain': that is their bodies could be destroyed, or mutilated so as to be unfit to sustain life. But this did not lead naturally to 'death': they were rehabilitated and reborn and eventually recovered memory of all their past: they remained

'identical'. But Miriel wished to abandon being, and refused rebirth.

'But Miriel wished to abandon being': this is a dark saying. There is nothing in any of the accounts to suggest that she desired annihilation, the ending of her existence in any form. In Laws and Customs (p. 222) my father wrote that 'some fear in grief or weariness gave up hope, and turning away from life relinquished their bodies, even though these might have been healed or were indeed unhurt. Few of these...

desired to be re-born, not at least until they had been long in

"waiting"; some never returned.' This surely accords with what is told of the death of Miriel.

It seems, at any rate, that when my father said here that Miriel 'tried to die' he meant that she sought a 'true death': not a 'seeming death', but a departure for ever out of Arda. Yet this could not be: for death in this sense was contrary to 'the given nature of the Elves', appointed by Iluvatar; and indeed, in Of Finwe' and Miriel ($20) Mandos spoke to the fea of Miriel, saying: 'In Mandos thou shalt abide. But take heed!